Mission to Verdanth
by DarthLumpy
Summary: Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie go on a mission to rescue a rebel alliance spy.


**Most of these characters and planets, etc. Belong to Lucasfilms and Disney. Just playing around with the toys and having fun. This will be part of a series of stories that follow the original trilogy in order, filling in bits and pieces of the time line, some will follow canon better than others, but mostly take it as AU. The further the stories go, the more AU they will go. They can be read as stand alone stories, or read together. This is Part 3, the last part was Chatting on Polis Massa.**

Mission to Verdanth

After a successful trip to Polis Massa, Luke and Leia returned to the frigate, Home One, they were calling home base for now, and Leia was able to secure a team to send on a mission to collect a few supplies that the medical facility agreed to share with the Alliance and also found a few items left from the old base that could be salvaged and reused. She gave them the contact at the facility and a data pad with maps. Luke found little to help him with his studies of the Jedi and their association with the place, but he did find a Kallidahin willing to talk with him about the Jedi, who did give him some information and said if he ever had more time, to come back and he could investigate some of the archives of the facilities here, where he might find more answers, and that made him optimistic.

High Command received a distress signal from the planet Verdanth, from a rebel agent who had not been heard from after going on an undercover assignment in another system. They imagined that the agent must have had to flee or got side tracked, but whatever the reason, it seems they crashed and were stuck. Verdanth was a jungle planet, and it was inhabited, but many areas were very dense and wild. The mission would be to investigate the crash site, see if the agent was alive, and retrieve any information he had gotten from his undercover mission, if he had been successful. The mission involved going undercover in an Empire weapons facility and to find diagrams of the weapons being made there in their system, get out and come back. Verdanth wasn't anywhere near the location of the planet the agent was sent, but it is possible that the ship had a malfunction after leaving hyperspace, or had been shot down, or some combination of both. It seemed like a pretty easy extraction, but the planet could be hostile as far as getting around and getting through and finding the ship, even with the distress call, because of the nature of the dense jungle.

Captain Solo was asked to go with Chewbacca, and agreed, and even though they had just gotten back from Polis Massa, Luke and Leia both volunteered. The priority in the mission was the information on the chip, then to rescue the agent, if for instance, the agent had been somehow taken or lost from the debris, and it was dangerous to retrieve him, make the chip more of a priority. Any information that might be on that chip would be a vital asset to the Alliance. The planet had ancient Sith temples that were long abandoned, and a lot of animal and plant life, some of which were poison. Though it seemed to be a basic, fly in retrieve, and fly out mission, it could end up being much more than that, and they had to camping gear, and medical supplies including anecdotes to a few of the poisons found there. Threepio and Artoo came along, there might be a need for Threepio to stay with the ship, depending on where they landed, or if they needed a translator, and Artoo could see if the chip was readable and was always handy in a crisis. There were also deep craters to be found in the area, and a few villages, though they were few and far between. There was no landing docks, so the idea was to fly into the atmosphere, as long as it didn't seem hostile, and to find a clear area near the crash site.

"I'm not getting any signal! Where is this ship! Chewie, let's move a little closer, the coordinates indicated it should be on this side of the planet." Han called out. Chewie roared . "I know we are close to the trees, just move closer. Put on the scopes and see if we can spot anything down there." Slowly they flew around, getting frustrated by not finding anything, and then, the distress signal started up again. As they got closer, they noticed it was coming from a dense area, so they flew to find a clear area to make a landing.

"Threepio, stay on the ship, you too Artoo." Luke ordered. Artoo beeped an affirmative.

Leia put on some tall boots, and started giving the orders, she was eager to get started. "Ok everyone gear up! We need coordinates for the location of the signal, so we know what direction to hit, let's get out and do this thing!"

Han shook his head. "Um, no sweetheart, I am in charge of this mission, and we aren't going anywhere just yet. We have to check and make sure this area is safe, and the chronos on this planet. For all we know, it might get dark before we get there. No need to get all ready to go right away. Relax for a minute."

Leia said "Look here. There is ship and an agent out there waiting for a rescue. What if he is in danger? What if the information is gone? So it gets dark. We have been out in the dark before."

Luke said "Guys, guys, come on now, do we always have to do this? Look at this stuff, I can cut it easy with my lightsaber. How far would you say this ship is?"

Han said "About a couple hours walk, if we don't have any weird obstacles, like a giant boulder, a giant fallen tree, a giant pit, or dangerous animals"

Just about then, a huge flying animal soared above them. Luke yelled "WHAT IS THAT THING!" Chewie got out his bowcaster, shot it, and down it came.

Han said "That thing is dinner. Now, come on and let's get our plan together."

Leia said "Since when have you planned anything?" And rolled her eyes.

They got a fire going, and Chewie prepared the what they learned was a rimebat, and decided to learn a bit more about the planet vegetation before embarking on the trip. Apparently, it was early in the day. And days were long here, so they would have plenty of light to work with, though the trees were tall and it could still be somewhat darker going through the dense jungle. They had to watch for one plant, which would be easy to spot according to the picture on the data pad, as it was very beautiful, and colorful, with oranges, blues, purples and golds.

"These plants seem to be the most dangerous ones, most of the vegetation here is harmless or just has a mild anaesthesic effect, but these here, the really colorful ones, can be dangerous. Just don't touch anything pretty." Leia said.

"Oh, there goes my night then." Said Han.

"Don't you ever stop? Seriously, apparently these things can kill you, or at least make you go to sleep, depending on how much you get in contact with it." Leia replied with an angry tone.

"So could you, sweetheart." Han said and winked.

Leia gave him a furious look and said"One of these days, ugggghhhhhh, why are you so..."

"Guys, come on." Luke said. "Sometimes I wonder why I go on these trips with the both of you. All you do is fight. One day, it will just be me and Chewie returning alone with the droids, because you guys went and blasted each other. I just don't want to be in the middle of that when it happens."

Chewie just laughed.

"Luke, that wasn't even that bad." Han said sheepishly.

"After having had ration bars for a while, Chewie, this is really good. I don't think I have had real meat in a while. Thanks a lot, Chewie." Leia said and gave him a pat.

"Yeah, that thing was weird and scary, but it sure tasted good." exclaimed Luke.

They finished the meal then started heading in the direction of the ship's signal. Luke led using the lightsaber to cut away some of the vegetation, while Chewie pushed through, and Han held the signal, with Leia holding the rear watching behind to make sure nothing followed them. After some time, they got to what they thought was the edge of a cliff. When they got closer to the edge, they realized it was one of those large craters the planet was known for and that they would have to follow around in order to make a straight path. Their straight path though had hit a curve. Only as they got closer to the edge, they realized it wasn't the edge of a cliff, but the edge of a crater.

They could see around the crater, but it got really dark down towards the bottom, they scoped the signal to figure out which direction would be best to get around to where it must be. It seemed as if the left side would be closer, but the jungle looked much denser that way, and the right side, though also full of trees and thick with plants, wasn't so dense.

"Luke has his lightsaber, we can cut though that, Chewie can pull and climb really well to get things out of the way, how about the shorter path? What do you say?" Han stated.

They all agreed, it really didn't seem to be good one way or the other, and might add more time to the journey. The signal was still strong, and they plotted along, following the edge and trying not to lose the signal. As they got deeper into the jungle, it got darker and darker, almost cave like, because of how tall the trees were here. There was barely any light at all and the glow of Luke's lightsaber was brighter than any natural light they had.

Leia shaking. "Guys, I am starting to get dizzy, I need to sit down." and as she started sitting down, she fell down with a thud and was out.

Chewie checked her pulse, and while he was doing that, there was another thud. Han was out too. Luke looked around with his lightsaber and found those pretty little plants that Leia was talking about. They could barely even see them. Chewie roared, and then checked Han. They both had a pulse. Luke brought the plant up on the data pad, and it looked like the toxin would wear off after a couple of hours. Luke dug out some tents from the pack and set up camp. Chewie picked up the princess, wiped her off a bit then set her on a blanket. Then he went and picked up Han and cleaned him up and laid him up against a rock.

"Some life debt there, Chewie, just leave Han sitting up on a rock." Chewie laughed, and then just sat next to Han's sleepy form looking for some ration bars

Luke checked the data pad to see if he could bring up anymore information on the planet. Both to pass the time, and to keep away from anything else that might be dangerous. A couple thousand years before, there were ancient Sith temples here, and he wondered if anything could be left from that time, and if it would pose a hazard for him. The Sith used dark side magic, and that was something he really didn't understand and wanted to avoid. Still, it was fascinating to read, and it gave him something to do. Chewie wondered if there was anything to hunt here, besides the rimebat, they had only seen a few small lizard like creatures. It just seemed to remind him a bit of Kashyyyk and the urge to climb and hunt was there, and it made him homesick. It was rare he could get home, and often dangerous. The Empire had quite the hold on his home planet. He thought again how it might be best to just stay put and keep an eye on his friends, and help Luke if something else suddenly came up.

Sometime later, Han came out of his sleep, with a bit of a headache. Chewie reached into the bag and found a few pills for the pain, and gave his friend some water. "What happened, where I am" Han said with a weary voice.

"Seems we ran into some of those 'pretty plants' we weren't supposed to touch. I guess you and Leia didn't see them and they knocked you out for a bit." Luke said.

"Where's Leia!" Han said holding on to his head "Is she ok?"

Chewie roared and pointed to the tent. She was still out. Luke went in to check on her and she was still sleeping. She seemed to be ok, her breathing was fine, it was just taking her longer to come out of it. It was still pretty dark in that part of the jungle, and since Han was now awake, Luke said he would go closer to the edge of the crater and see if it helped with visibility. It seemed they were really having a hard time in that part of the jungle, and it wouldn't help if they kept in contact with that plant. The signal was still strong, so he took it as a good sign. When he got back to his friends, and Leia was starting to come to, and Chewie was helping her get up, and giving her pain medicine and water.

"Give me a few minutes here, not quite steady yet" Leia said as she almost tripped trying to stand up.

"Looks like if we get close to the edge, we can see a little better. We just have to watch our footing, there are a few spots where it looks like it comes in a bit. I don't know how deep this thing is. " Luke said.

They started closer to the edge, and it was a little brighter, it got rough a bit, but they were able to manage if they watched carefully. They took it really slow. With the plants and the pits and everything else, who knows what could happen next. Luke walked, then almost fell, swayed back and forth, then caught himself, there was a large gap in the rock, that seemed to stretch a long way, far enough that they couldn't see where it ended. Luke could barely step across it, Chewbacca proceeded to pick up Leia and carry her across and Han jumped across it. It looked wide enough to fall into, but not too wide to get over. The signal was getting stronger, but it was coming from a different direction now. They realized that the ship was here, and that direction was down.

Luke called down "Hello" as it echoed far down the crater.

A distant "Hello, there!" was heard back.

Han threw something down to get an idea of how far down it was, it was hard to see, as it seemed to get darker the further down you looked.

He then said. "I think we can get a rope down there, Chewie, think you can help me out here. We have a rope that will hold, we can tie it to that tree, and Chewie and I can kind of keep a balance on it. Kid, you ok with taking a ride down into the crater?"

"Um, ok, you think we have one long enough?" Luke replied with a little skepticism.

"Only one way to find out." and Han and Chewie went to tie the rope, while Luke got a pair of gloves and some hooks. He clipped the hooks on the rope, and slowly slid down. Breathing deep, trying to get in touch with the Force. He had no idea how far this would be, and he figured the Force could be of help. He had a good feeling about going down, as long as he breathed in, then some rocks fell as he gripped the side. It distracted his train of throught, but he pushed through and tried to channel the Force again. Finally, he was down, it was dark and he lit his lightsaber to help call to whoever was in the crater.

"Hello, anyone down here?" Luke called out.

A man in a flight jacket walked towards him. "Please tell me you are with the Alliance? I have been sending a signal for a while now, and ran out of food and water."

Luke replied, "Commander Luke Skywalker here. Rebel Alliance. I am here to get you out of here. Is your ship down this crater as well?"

"Bayleen Antilles, sir, I work intelligence for the Alliance. Been stuck down here and haven't been able to see much, but for the light that still works on my ship."

"Antilles? Are you related to Wedge? He is one of my friends in my squadron? How far is the ship?" Luke said.

"Is he from Alderaan? Because that is where I am from. I don't know a Wedge, heard of him though. My ship isn't far, I followed your light, can you light the way, and I will point it out." Bayleen replied.

"Alderaan, well you'll never guess who have with me." Luke paused for a moment and wondered if he really should say, but he felt that this guy was who he claimed to be and he was even wearing an Alliance flight suit. "Princess Leia is with me. We are part of the team to come and get you."

"Want to talk about relatives, Commander, she's my cousin! Well Queen Breha was my father's cousin. I knew her when she was small. I am a bit older than her though, so she may not remember me, but I remember her well. That's fantastic. It's been a while since I have seen anyone from home. There are rumors that she died, but I did hear rumors that she was alive. That's great she's here." Bayleen answered.

They got to the ship, and Luke suddenly felt something dark. Not just because it was dark, but a feeling. He asked Bayleen Antilles to stay with his ship for a bit, and he walked a bit. As he walked he got colder and colder, and started shaking, and then he saw something, but it wasn't there. It was dark, but he heard a loud breathing sound, and Luke started shaking even more and fell to the ground. And then it vanished. He went back to the damaged ship, and Bayleen asked him. "You ok there, buddy."

"I just had a bit of a scare. This place is dark, not just dark because we can't see, but dark I can feel. I really want to get out of here. Oh, do you have an information chip, I hate to say it, but High Command wanted that back more than they wanted you." Luke replied.

Bayleen laughed. "I'm not surprised. Yes, I have it, I hope I got some good stuff. I had only a few minutes to get some information before I had to get out of there."

"Let's go find that rope, my friends will help get you out of here." Luke said.

It took a little doing, because of the darkness of the crater, but they found the rope, called up then tugged it so Han and Chewie would get the idea they were coming, and Luke got hooks for Bayleen and himself and started moving up the rope. Han and Chewie helped by pulling them up a bit, and it seemed even a little easier to go up than down. Looking up was a lot easier too. When they got to the top, they dusted off and Bayleen introduced himself and said "Princess Leia! Do you remember me? I am Bayleen Antilles from Alderaan!"

Leia squealed, jumped up and gave him a big hug and a kiss and he swung her around a bit all smiles. Luke grinned, and Han got kind of all weird and uncomfortable.

"Hey, hey now, we got to get out of here now, come on everyone." Han said with a surly voice.

Leia said, "Everyone, Bayleen is my cousin! I remember playing with him, we all played smash ball and I was so little that he would help me play with the big kids. I can't tell you how great it is to see you! They never told me who we were coming after. You met Luke, Bayleen, this is Han Solo and Chewbacca."

They started walking back to the ship, the same way they came, and told Bayleen to watch out for the multicolored pretty plants that held them up earlier with the nap that Han and Leia took accidentally touching it. It was a lot easier to return too, as the path had already been cut from them going through it already. When they got back to the ship, Threepio and Artoo, opened the hatch and came out.

"Captain Solo, nothing to report, it was just Artoo and I and we had no visitors to the ship at all." Threepio announced.

They decided to wait a bit to see if another rimebat could show up for Chewie to shoot and for them to eat, as it was so good, and would be good to have some fresh meat to take back. Lucky for them, they didn't have to take long and Chewie even took care of the butchering, and carried the meat into the galley.

On board the ship, Leia and Bayleen caught up with each other. Bayleen had said that her father was the one that got him into the Alliance and he had been working doing intelligence work for a few years. He wondered why their paths never crossed, but apparently once or twice they had even just missed each other. That was the way of the Alliance sometimes. He wondered why she hadn't gone underground and instead was working in the heart of the war. She told him that was what was keeping her going since Alderaan. She didn't have the heart to tell him she saw it happen, she barely told anyone.

In the cockpit, Han, Chewie and Luke sat. It was quiet and they were waiting for coordinates codes to go into hyperspace. Luke spoke up and said. "Han what's wrong, you seem to be in a bad mood all of a sudden. Are you ok, is it a side effect from that plant? We did everything and got out of there, I thought you would be happy."

"Nothing wrong, nothing at all, what are you talking about, Luke." Han said.

"That, that right there, the way you said that. I don't understand you sometimes." Luke laughed and went out to check on Leia and Bayleen,

Chewie roared as he went out and Han said "Oh shut up fuzzball."

They got into hyperspace and Chewie and Han walked back to engineering to sit with the group.

"Well this is what happened, I was changing coordinates, ran into some Imperials, got a lot of damage. So I found the closest system, went into hyperspace, then crashed into that crater. I would have never have done that if the Imps weren't following me, but I had to get out of there. If they found that this information was stolen, it wouldn't have been good for the Alliance." Bayleen said. "I was in that pit for days it felt like. I ran out of water before you all found me. Another day or two I would have been a goner." He paused looked at Chewbacca and said. "You know I don't see many Wookiees these days, how did you join the Alliance, Chewbacca?"

Chewbacca, spoke in shyriiwook, and Han was getting ready to translate for him, but Bayleen answered before he could.

"Wow, you free agents? And Chewbacca you really want to join but can't?"

Han said. "Chewie shhhhh this guy understands you!"

Everyone laughed, but Han. He always liked that he was the one translating for Chewie. Chewie tended to run his mouth sometimes and no one knew, but Han in their circle. Luke and Leia already got a sense that Chewie would join in a heartbeat if it wasn't for Han.

Chewie said something else, and Bayleen said. " I worked with Wookiee refugees for a while, I picked up a lot. I don't understand everything you say, but I get most of it. A lot of people really don't know how intelligent and interesting Wookiees are. I really have a great respect for Wookiees."

Chewie howled with glee and shook his hand.

"You are alright, Bayleen, alright." Han said with a better attitude than before. Luke didn't know if it was because Bayleen was new to him, or that Han didn't trust him or what, but he sensed that Han was upset for some reason after they came up from the crater.

When they got to Home One, Leia gave Admiral Ackbar the chip so it could be analyzed for any information that would be of use to the Alliance against the Empire. Bayleen couldn't stay, but would need a new ship, so they were able to get him one he could use, but it was on another frigate and that would give him time to have a visit with Leia before he went on his next assignment. He thanked Luke, Han and Chewie for the rescue, then walked off with Leia. Luke went back into the Falcon with Han and Chewie to get the supplies from the mission out and maybe sit and talk with them for a while before going back to his quarters.

"Han, do you want to get check out in medical because of that plant? You just seem a bit off." Luke said.

"I'm ok, I just think it's time to leave again and see if I can get a few jobs to pay my debt to Jabba." Han said grimly.

"Geez, Han, I hope you come back. You are such a help here, and I'll miss you." Luke said I sadly.

"I'll try, kid, but I don't know. You know how it is." Han said

"I know you have left a couple of times before, and came back. I hope you can fix this thing though. It seems to be holding you back, unless you like having something holding you back. Sometimes, I think you like that." Luke said.

"What are you talking about? Nothing holds me back, nothing!" and he put his arms in the air and spun around and walked away.

"Take care of yourself, let me know before you leave ok, and tell Leia, too. I know you guys fight all the time, but I know you guys are friends, too." Luke said and left with the gear in his arms.

Next day, Leia saw Bayleen off on his next mission. It did her good to see someone from home and someone who knew her when she was young. "Take care of yourself, Bayleen!" and she gave him a hug and a kiss goodbye.

Luke met Leia a bit later and she was in a good mood. She asked if Luke knew if there was anymore rimebat on the Falcon, and Luke said he hadn't seen Han and Chewie since the day before, and mentioned the conversation that he had with Han about him leaving again. Leia grabbed Luke and then pulled him toward the hanger where the Falcon was parked and banged on the ramp. It opened and up they went, Luke getting dragged behind. Leia then shouted, "What is this about you leaving again!"

Han just stood there with his mouth opened, not saying anything. Chewie just happened to be cooking some of the rimebat, and motioned for them to take a seat.


End file.
